If you’re trying to make sense of conflicting metrics that don’t tell the story, or you’re looking for a fresh start, you need numbers you can trust. Whether it’s a one-time deep dive, measurement setup on a website project, or a full Digital Marketing Success Plan®, we have a number of starting points.
Services / Strategy and Measurement
Digital Marketing Strategy and Analytics That Tie to Business Outcomes
Strategy comes first
We can’t impact business outcomes if we don’t know what they are.
We’ve had prospects tell us another agency recommended $7,000 a month in paid search, then ask what we think they should spend. Our honest answer is that we don’t know yet (and we’re not even sure paid search belongs in the plan) until we understand your goals.
When you’ve been doing digital marketing for a while, you have a set of activities and tactics in the mix. They could be exactly the right ones. But without a broader strategy defining them, the work can drift into a checklist of best practices that leaves unanswered questions, defensive KPI presentations, and a gap between what was invested and what it produced.
We start with tailored sessions to get to the true business and marketing math, inward and outward market research, and goals your marketing can deliver on. In a world full of shiny objects and distractions, and no matter how wide or narrow the work, it starts with strategy and measurement planning, so gaps are filled and we’re not assuming or guessing down the road.
Ways to work with us
There’s more than one way to start.
Even with our industry focus, we don’t assume any two organizations are the same. Everyone is at a different point with their website, martech, search, and overall strategy. We don’t require you to do things our way, use our stack, or rebuild from the ground up. We enjoy digging deep, solving problems, and using our frameworks and processes to arrive at the right strategy and plan for clients big and small.
Digital Marketing Success Plan®
For the most immersive strategy and plan, we use our START Planning Process to build what we call a Digital Marketing Success Plan®. It’s our most thorough starting point, so we understand all the risks and opportunities before we set expectations or make decisions.
Explore DMSP®
Channel Strategy
Another common starting point is a focused channel strategy for SEO, paid search, AI search, or a combination. It works well when the research is already done and we can go deep on one channel, with the impact and outcomes connected to your broader marketing.
Analytics Audit and Measurement Setup
Sometimes you need a second opinion, or someone to get under the hood. If there are unidentified problems, quick fixes, or missing documentation, an audit gives us a baseline for your website and search performance and a clear path into strategy. When tracking isn’t in place, we set it up, from GA4 and Tag Manager to conversions, CRM, and call tracking.
Explore Marketing Analytics
Reporting, Optimization, and Testing
Strategy leads into ongoing work in many cases. That includes incremental strategy with set review intervals, ongoing optimization, conversion rate optimization (CRO) and testing, and active measurement and reporting, including AI search visibility. This typically happens within a retainer providing for predictable rhythms, collaboration, and investment.
Measurement
We shift the conversation from reporting to review.
While search marketing and website performance metrics are standardized (although we’re getting new AI metrics as we go), on their own, they are meaningless. We find meaning not in collecting them or reporting them, but in understanding what the true goal is and how KPIs serve as indicators of the impact and influence of the tactics tied to the strategy. A powerful review process understands the past and present and shapes the future, versus just regurgitating what happened.
Email and automation engage prospects in a personal way.
With data, coupled with strategy, you have the ability to scale and extend beyond just search marketing. Through CRM and data-connected sources we can support business development and sales efforts. It often isn’t enough to just gain ad, SEO, and AI impressions and clicks, or even conversions. You need to stay in front of prospects at every step and turn as they consider you, so your expertise and unique value stay front and center.
Results
The plan came first, and the numbers followed.
40%+
of inquiries now qualified, up from 2.5%
68%
lower cost per paid search lead, year over year
150%
increase in paid search leads, year over year
NSPJ Architects‘ website produced plenty of inquiries, but only 2.5% came from real prospective clients. We spent the first quarter building a Digital Marketing Success Plan®, including a written, business-correct definition of a marketing qualified lead, and rebuilt tracking so every inquiry is traced to its source. Today 40% or more of NSPJ’s inquiries are qualified.
Why firms trust us
No junior people. You work with experts.
The VOLTAGE team is deeply embedded in the digital marketing industry including writing for industry leading publications (Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land, Forbes), writing a best-selling book, speaking at industry conferences, serving on the global trade association board, founding a search marketing conference, judging industry awards, being recognized by our peers (over 75 local/global awards in past decade) and producing our own site’s thought leadership content.
That starts at the top with our CEO and leader, Corey Morris, but doesn’t end there. We’re a team of senior-level people with a balance of experience in our subject matter as well as in working with firms in your industry.
Further evidence of our depth of expertise is that a share of the work we do is in partnership with other agencies who have sought us out for our specialization in search marketing and/or websites.
What happens next
No sales process. Just a real conversation.
You won’t be put into a sales process, talked at, or pitched with slide decks when you talk with us. You’re not getting handed off to a sales team and will be talking directly with our senior level staff and leadership. Our focus is on understanding your goals, culture, and making sure that we fit what you’re looking for. We are as good at working ourselves out of a deal as we are demonstrating that we are the right partner. We want mutual wins that start with a solid strategy that leads to ROI.
When you fill out our form to reach out to us, we’ll prepare for our initial conversation. We do our homework to prepare as we’ll ask a lot of questions, give you the opportunity to do the same, to get a sense for how we think, and to also fairly evaluate the fit of us for your team. No pressure, no obligations.
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You fill out the form
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We do our homework before we talk
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A real conversation — no slides, no pitch
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We both decide if it’s a fit
FAQ
Questions about strategy and measurement.
A big reason we love strategy is that we like to reduce risk and surprises, and the same goes for how we price it. Strategy, audits, and setup are fixed-cost projects, one-time or phased, so you know the investment up front. Implementation and ongoing reporting then move to a monthly retainer, without blurring the lines between strategy and implementation.
No. While it is a common starting point and a robust process (enough to fill a best-selling book), we meet our clients where they are. We tier our work, scale it, and focus it in ways that make sense to make best use of client budgets. We don’t want anyone paying for something they already have while also leaving something out that we need to make strategic decisions.
We blend industry-leading platforms and tools like GA4, Google Tag Manager, Looker Studio, Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, and more, with custom solutions and client-integrated software. Our clients have CRM, ERP, call tracking, and other existing platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce, and custom solutions. Whether they have a data lake or more simple solution (or none at all) we work to ensure that search and web data is harmonized with broader marketing and business data so no channel or strategy is on an island.
Yes. While the tooling and tech continue to change and grow, we have methods for tracking AI answer engine traffic in GA4 with server-side tagging, third-party tools, and other data collection and measurement methods. Our measurement plan for each client uses available data and tools coupled with the right level of investment and implementation for proper ROI and business outcome reporting. We don’t put you into tools or tech that you don’t need and also don’t try to do things manually that could be done by a tool or AI.
Yes. Just as we wouldn’t launch a site that isn’t mobile friendly, ignores accessibility, or skips consent management, we don’t skip at least a basic level of analytics and tracking. Typically, if you’re not tracking from the start, you can’t reclaim the data (or it is a mess, if you’ve ever looked at a server log file) and we don’t want any clients to have regrets later over steps that were skipped during website development or launch.